Phone Phobia

August 17, 2009

Mary Jane Copps

It is no exaggeration to say that the telephone has given me a fabulous life (I’ll tell you more in later posts) which is why I’ve been completely surprised to discover that many business people (approximately 80%) suffer from “phone phobia”. Entrepreneurs, salespeople, administrators (to name a few) agonize over picking up the phone and getting things done. Face-to-face communication provides them with the comfort of body language and the wealth of information it provides. And email is in their control (until they hit send!), limited to tight black and white statements. But telephone conversations fall somewhere in between. They are “blind” yet include (and require) personality and emotional connection. So people hesitate, procrastinate and eventually find themselves in a tight spot – sometimes without enough customers, sometimes weeks behind on a deadline. The Phone Lady exists to eliminate phone phobia, to share with business people the psychology behind telephone communication – how it works, why it works and how it can work for you. Because, like it or not, the telephone (even though it successfully transmitted its first sentence way back on March 10, 1876) remains the shortest distance between two people, and your most powerful and cost-effective business tool. I’ve started this blog to share with you all I’ve learned in the past 22 years about business telephone communication. But I’ve also started it because I want to hear from you. What, specifically, is your telephone challenge? Share it with me. I’m confident I can help. And what about your telephone frustrations? Is there a person, a company, an incident where someone else’s phone etiquette or personality made you reconsider being their customer – or doing business with them in the first place? I’d love it if you shared that with me too. I’ll investigate and include my research in this blog. My website www.thephonelady.ca includes many ways to reach me with your questions, comments or phone stories. I look forward to hearing from you